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General discussions. For specific printers / electronics / fabrication methods / softwares, please see other sections.
Re: Spoofed link in List of available files - 16 years ago
Happens all the time. There are now three of us who regularly clean out the garbage. If you'd like to help, click on recent changes, open up the infected pages into separate tabs, click on history for each, select a previous, uninfected, version, "edit" that version, (you'll get a warning about editing an old page,) put some comment in the comments line about correcting spam, and hit submit.by Roach_S - General
Re: Turkey Roaster RepRap, almost tempting - 16 years ago
Well, Fernando is playing around with photo-cured plastics. Someone mentioned heat-cured, as opposed to thermo-, plastics. Both of those could be layed down and fixed, so further application of heat, (or light,) didn't cause them to soften. There is still hope for an oven that can "bake" its own replacement. I suppose the best real-world reference would be a brick-lined kiln. The bricks themselby Roach_S - General
Re: Reprapping Engines - 16 years ago
Hey, you got a thread to two pages. So, it digressed a bit, they all do. Welcome to the RepRap project, where ideas won't stay in the box. P.S. Victor Dirks has described a complete power train. Motor, (the four solenoids operating in chase light fashion,) "transmission", (the pump,) and driveshaft/differential, (the tube solenoids.) Again, welcome to RepRap.by Roach_S - General
Re: Reprapping Engines - 16 years ago
Hmm. The triple point of water is about -1C and a partial vacuum. How about using an evacuated, rigid, and sealed region for a steam engine, and transferring the force to an unevacuated region for pumping, using a spinning magnet. You could also use the steam engines own force, or the force of a neighbor unit, to scavenge air out of the thing, to help preserve the vacuum.by Roach_S - General
Re: Turkey Roaster RepRap, almost tempting - 16 years ago
I've stated before that "food replicators" may be a good way for reprap to go. Imagine something like the above on a submarine...fitted out with assorted artificial flavors, and colors, and with techniques built in to moderate density, resiliency, and brittleness. You could cook something that would look like, taste like, and even have the mouth feel of, whatever food you wanted. Suddenly, tigby Roach_S - General
Re: Building Low Pressure Solenoid Valves - 16 years ago
Hmm. You could get away from the permanent magnets by putting an indentation in the downstream side of the valve. When the ball is under pressure, it would tend to stay in the closed state. I don't know how you'd get rid of the lower magnet, though. Bernoulli effects would probably tend to draw the ball into the stream.by Roach_S - Mechanics
Re: Easy to build linear stages - 16 years ago
I remember reading, it might have been here, that using elastic tube to connect the motor to the drive rod produces somewhat problematic results. Something about the motor leading the shaft a bit, and the shaft catching up a bit. This is in the same vein as why I was told gears aren't used very much, it introduces slop. A clever bit of work, anyway. I didn't find the reference to the slop beinby Roach_S - Mechanics
Re: Support material slump - 16 years ago
I've been thinking it'd be workable to build the part in a box, and keep the box topped off with something granular. Sand perhaps. As you build the part, build the box around it, deposit filler material within the box, then scrape the box level before proceeding with the next layer.by Roach_S - General
Re: delivery woes and general relaxation - 16 years ago
I'm glad to see you. I was worried you'd suffered terminal burnout, and the very promising avenues you were exploring would go unmapped.by Roach_S - Paste Extrusion Working Group
Re: Open Source, self-replication, and general project orientation (WAS Re: RepRap or conventional manufacturing cheaper?) - 16 years ago
Ah. I thought they were belt buckles. Sorry, I should have known better. I can think of at least one example of what I mistook them for, that was manufactured on a large scale back in the 80's. I thought they were the type of plastic buckle sometimes used for backpack chest straps and child seats. I see, from your close-ups, they are more along the lines of robotic grippers, which are slid iby Roach_S - General
Re: Open Source, self-replication, and general project orientation (WAS Re: RepRap or conventional manufacturing cheaper?) - 16 years ago
Mr. Dirks, Those buckles in your picture, they're ubiquitous. Were those your design?by Roach_S - General
Re: Ideas for motorizing old micron-screws wanted ... - 16 years ago
I may be speaking from a misconception, but here goes. Give the thing a toothed rod "gear", long enough to be engaged for the total distance of travel of the screw. Fit a second, more typical gear, to this. As it travels, it continues to be engaged. If the travel is not too much, and you have room to play, you might consider a belt or chain that's long enough that the travel of the screw isn'tby Roach_S - General
Re: Dot printing rather than Extruding? - 16 years ago
You might dig through these forums for posts by Fernando. Check the blogs too. He was experimenting with photo-cured plastics. This might be suitable to your ideas. Last I remember reading, he was trying to find something that would cure the plastic fast enough, and a cheap enough, and potent enough, UV source to do so with.by Roach_S - Reprappers
Re: Powder support - 16 years ago
I believe he's proposing a powder/sintering system, as a counter suggestion to the current method of using extruded plastic.by Roach_S - Mechanics
Re: Why Repstrap? - 17 years ago
Forrest Higgs is making a variant design that he dubs Tommelise. He's using more traditional motors, and a feedback system, to handle position. This is a concept that is being considered for Mendel, so any lessons he learns with his system can be applied to a future RepRap. Think of it as a development fork that continues to add to the body of knowledge of RepRaps in general. A lot of the desby Roach_S - General
Re: Reprapping Engines - 17 years ago
Modern engines still look cast, then machined, so I assume that's how it's still done. At least for the engine block.by Roach_S - General
Re: RepRap Self Miniaturization thought - 17 years ago
Basically, it sounds like you invented part of the toolset to do home printing of micro and nano-electronics. The way that looks to me is some of the necessary capacity to actually turn out more than just the structural bits of another fabricator. It also suggests to me the ability to prototype chips, and even do "one-off" consumer electronics. Granted, you'd have to leave your reprap runningby Roach_S - General
Re: granule extruder - 17 years ago
If you separate the bulk of the supply from the printhead, you have no practical upper limit to print size. if you wanted to stack a 55 gallon drum beside the rep-rap, with a opto-isolator controlled auger to feed the "standard" reservoir, you could print objects up to 55 gallons, plus the volume of your other reservoir, in size. Limited by the size of the rep-rap, of course. For this reason,by Roach_S - Mechanics
Re: RepRap Self Miniaturization thought - 17 years ago
Ohhhh....chip manufacture.... I want a sub-micron silicon etching head...by Roach_S - General
Re: Necessary Announcement - 17 years ago
You post under a pseudonym. I don't recall you actually mentioning your employer by name. I thought that was a given.by Roach_S - General
Re: RepRap or conventional manufacturing cheaper? - 17 years ago
Well spoken, As I said, wealth is generally a measure of your possessions, when compared to those of your neighbors. However, reprap can free a population from being defined by an outside party. Countries and Corporations may have guided the development of manufacturing, but once Individuals can produce equivalent works, things can change. The internet has freed the general population from relby Roach_S - General
Re: New to Fab, resolution question - 17 years ago
Sounds great. I figured the cells would be buried in the substrate that was printed, but I know next to nothing about biology. Have you considered trying to work in Jello? Unfortunately, the way consumer inkjets work is they boil a small bit of ink, and what comes out is basically the splatter. At least, that's the version I'm aware of. Good luck with your project. I'm 32 and know already Iby Roach_S - Tissue Engineering
Re: RepRap or conventional manufacturing cheaper? - 17 years ago
Hmm, You may very well be right about "easing". My "experience", if you can call it that, is from tinkering around with unrelated things, and extrapolating Potential alternate uses for them. I'll list the one I think could, potentially, handle your "easing" problem. Blender.org The program that you'll find there, is a highly flexible 3-d modeling program, (with a very steep learning curve.)by Roach_S - General
Re: Another 3 Axis Position System for a RepStrap - 17 years ago
Hmm... With this in mind, will you be offering the quick-change assembly that's intended for 2.0? If I use this, I'd very much like to be able to quickly swap the extruder out for a rotary tool. Esp, as the original author did, in fact, use a rotary tool, on this design, to turn out "printed" circuit boards.by Roach_S - General
Re: First (basic) attempt at a repstrap - 17 years ago
If you didn't care about the time it'd take to print it, you could have stood the bed on end, and printed it diagonally across the unit.by Roach_S - General
Re: First (basic) attempt at a repstrap - 17 years ago
No. There have been "works with Lego's" bricks for a couple decades, now, I think. You just have to. A. not call them legos, and B. Not have lego printed on the brick.by Roach_S - General
Re: Spam in the wiki? - 17 years ago
How about tracing down the "people" posting the spam, and pointing them to a nice anti-virus program? I've become convinced we're the victim of a 'bot-net. The attack has "evolved" somewhat, but at least one of the "spammers" is still doing something the rest quit doing in May, suggesting an earlier version of the 'bot. That something is damaging the original document when spam is added...and soby Roach_S - General
Re: Poor economics on front page? - 17 years ago
I'd go for "Capitolism of the people, by the people, and for the people.", but I live in the South, and might get lynched by some of my neighbors...I just don't know which ones. :> Something else to consider. This project, while global in scope, is based out of Bath, England. I doubt the sensibilities of a bunch of "former colonials" was high on anyones mind when this got started. A sideby Roach_S - General
Re: Big boost for Linux... - 17 years ago
Ohh... I want a motherboard and chipset that will use it... Preferably laptop.by Roach_S - General
Re: Poor economics on front page? - 17 years ago
That asks the question, is "on a shoestring" a universal english statement? I've heard of people missing idioms in a second language, while being quite fluent, and articulate, in that language.by Roach_S - General